Tweet07-11-2010 om 01:16 by Sueli Brodin

“These are understandable questions,” Micha Bruinvels, contest coordinator at the World Press Photo organisation said to me last Friday afternoon during the English language guided tour at Centre Céramique in Maastricht. “Maybe you will even feel the need to share them in your blog and that’s okay, because this is precisely the aim of our exhibition: to show the important events that are happening in our world today and provoke the public to think about them.”

I don’t know how he guessed that I write a blog but he had correctly assessed that a number of photographs on display could be perceived as very disturbing. There was actually a warning message at the entrance of the exhibition: “Some of the photographs may be shocking.”



To me, several of the reportages - the stoning of a man in Somalia, the pictures of casualties during the Gaza War of 2008-2009, the elephant story in hunger-stricken Zimbabwe – felt like they reached the limit of what I could bear. “How far can photojournalism go?” I wondered. “Are photojournalists allowed to take photographs of any topic as long as they believe that it has news value? What about the public, how much can viewers take?”



Although each photograph came with a caption, I found it helpful to listen to Bruinvels’ explanations on the stories behind the images and to be able to ask him questions directly.

Bruinvels explained that his organisation was aware that many of the photographs on exhibit touched on difficult and complex issues, creating an increasingly outspoken need and demand among the public for more contextual insight into the circumstances surrounding the making of the photographs.

At the end of the guided tour, he showed us a space where large computer screens had been placed at our disposal: “Thanks to modern digital technology, we are now able to share the complete history of the World Press Photo contest, with all the winning photographs that have been kept on archive, as well as various multimedia resources such as video interviews with photographers.”



I later visited my colleagues at the European Journalism Centre on the top floor of Centre Céramique and discussed the exhibition with some of them. Our conversation quickly moved to the subject of “constructive journalism”, a new trend in journalism advocated by News Director at DR News Ulrik Haagerup at the recent Future of Journalism Conference in Amsterdam, and to the added value it could bring to photojournalism. The idea behind constructive journalism is that society would be better served if instead of focusing mainly on exposing problems, journalists would also look for possible solutions.

The concept is appealing to me, because the sight of gruesome images – as legitimate as they may be - has a negative impact on me and leaves me with a feeling of powerlessness.



In these moments, the most immediate and effective solace I find is to share my thoughts with others and I am lucky to have people around me who will listen to me.

A friend of mine tells me that every evening when she takes her two children to bed, she sits for a while with each one of them and gently inquires about their day. She tries to find out not only what happened but mostly how they experienced their day, how they felt about it, if they enjoyed themselves or not, and why. She tells me that when problems are raised, she encourages them to come up with their own solutions first and to discuss them with her afterwards. Her main goal in doing this is to teach them to think by themselves and to develop themselves in the process. It’s a very positive and rewarding dialogue, she says, and I believe her.

The way I see it, she practices a very humanistic form of communication, based on listening and showing respect for other people’s points of view.

The Dutch Humanistic Alliance (Humanistisch Verbond), which counts 10,000 registered members, has a strong presence in the media and in public education, where one third of public schools offer weekly humanistic lessons to their pupils. According to a recent survey, almost 40 percent of the Dutch population leans towards a humanistic view of mankind and the world.



This is why I think so many people in the Netherlands took part in the national Day of the Dialogue last Thursday. In fact, the initiative has now grown into a whole week event, with 15,000 people in 56 municipalities across the country expected to come together in dialogue around 2,000 “dialogue tables”.

The theme this year in Maastricht was Belonging (Erbij horen) and I was invited to join the table organised by Radio Maastricht.



I sat with three other people, including the host of the programme, three men of different ages and backgrounds whom I don’t think I would have had the opportunity to meet and get to know otherwise. For an hour and a half, we talked about our thoughts and dreams on the topic and I found it an enlightening experience, because I realised that contrary to my usual conception, it is not only the expatriate community who is trying to find ways to belong, but many of the Dutch themselves, who for all sorts of reason – age, socio-cultural background, religious beliefs, physical handicaps, poverty – suffer from social isolation.



Martin, who had been asked to act as dialogue moderator, was a very sensitive and emotional man, and he explained how distraught he was at seeing the growing divisions within Dutch society because of changing values and under the influence of right wing politicians like Geert Wilders. Martin told us that he was a member of the Humanistic Alliance and did volunteer work in various altruistic associations in Maastricht. “My dream,” he said, “and I still believe in having dreams, is that by sitting together around a table with complete strangers and taking the time to talk to each other and listen to each other’s opinions, we will manage to create a world where we won’t need to fight and hurt one another anymore.”



And then perhaps, there will be a World Press Photo exhibition I can take my children to.

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